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Saturday, March 14, 2009

REMEMBER THE IDES OF MARCH


The Judgment of History
By Jose Sison Luzada
Delray Beach, FL

        SA LAHAT NG SUGAT, ANG PINAKAMASAKIT AY

        YONG SAKSAK NA NANGALING SA KAIBIGAN”

                    an old Tagalog proverb


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      Helplessly fending off the conspirators’ treacherous surging knives coming from all directions, Caesar stood to his ground, a true fashion of a brave veteran Roman soldier. Of the thirty-two stabbings Julius Caesar received he groaned but once and that was the first initial blow”, so says Suetonius, Roman historian and author of “Lives of the Twelve Caesars”

      Relying chiefly from witnesses watching on that violent Friday, March 15, 44 BC Ides of March, Suetonius noted that the most climactic was when Caesar was surprised and shocked to see a face revealed turned out to be his mistress’ son whom he enjoyed conversing with him in the Greek language about Hellenic culture.

      The rumor long circulated was that Brutus was his son. If so, the moment of truth came when Brutus, the assailant-assassin finally took his turn to finish the job he planned, sworn and participated. To kill Caesar is a mission before he dissolves the Roman Republic and install himself emperor. Preempt is a better discretion than watch the death of the Republic that his brave ancestor, Lucius Jucinius Brutus founded after he helped expelling the Etruscan kings.

      A great number of bystanders heard Caesar uttered, “KA ISU TEKNON”. Besides Suetonius, Plutarch who wrote “Parallel Lives of Great Greeks and Romans” confirmed that it was in Greek that Julius Caesar spoke the famous words that Shakespeare borrowed and used his Latinized version meaning “You also, my son?”

      Yes, it was William Shakespeare whose tragedy and history drama “Julius Caesar” brainwashed us into associating the Latin phrase ‘ETU, BRUTUS’ on the brutal killing of Caesar.

      Without Shakespeare’s ETU, BRUTUS’ we will be deprived using the word BRUTE or BRUTAL or BRUTALITY to describe violent wicked, cruel merciless killing! But to ascribe these words to Brutus, the Roman citizen and defender of the Roman Republic will be unfair. As he vehemently asserted his genuine patriotism, “it was not that I love Caesar less but I love Rome more!”

      While Julius Caesar is the greatest Roman, it was Shakespeare who characterized Brutus” the Noblest Roman of them all!

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